Where do I start: Shiny hard to read notes, no e-kit functionality, no keys and no ability to use wired controllers.
I have lag with my GH5 controller, not much but it affects my ability to play at my full potential.
It's just a waiting game now with the e-kits, Ions and wired adapter. Until then I won't be playing much RB4.

And the fact is it will eventually be a good game, because it's constantly updated.

The fact that the game is still a shell of what it could have been and what it has been in the past gives me no hope of it ever coming close to becoming a "good game." The game has so many flaws and draw backs compared to previous releases that they've really dropped the ball on what's important and what made the originals so unique and worth while.

The other fact that the game was $60 on release + instruments, doesn't even give it an Early Access type of feel. You shouldn't release the game for public purchase with the intent to try and get and income to keep the team going to eventually call the game "finished" in 2+ years time.

Well, I played Destiny on and off, and my opinions on it obviously bounced around massively during its lifetime, but finally settled on it being a good game. Because of it's dynamic and fluid nature, everything in the game can change to suit the wants of the masses, and that is a powerful ability.

Rock band 4 has the same ability, and I think these developers truly do have the userbase's best interests at heart, even if they do fuck up colossally sometimes.

This means that as long as the actual core game isn't fucked, and people cry loud enough, that it'll become what everyone wants it to be.

You shouldn't release the game for public purchase with the intent to try and get and income to keep the team going to eventually call the game "finished" in 2+ years time.

Evidently you've never heard of Minecraft.

I do understand where you're coming from. A series with a history of having solid, well-developed, and above all completed games makes it very frustrating when they release a sequel that feels relatively unfinished.

Harmonix isn't the company it used to be. When RB2 and RB3 came out Harmonix had considerably more resources than they do now. After Rock Band 3 Harmonix's resources, particularly staff and budget, were considerably downsized.

Respectfully, the thing you and many Rock Ban--hell, many gamers in general don't understand is that video games aren't easy to develop and the smaller a studio and budget, the less complete a game is going to be when given the scale of the game. I know what you're thinking. "Ori and the Blind Forest felt complete." "Minecraft felt complete." Limbo felt complete." Yes, but those are small games. Rock Band isn't. Harmonix went from a AAA-level dev team to practically an indie studio.. To give an example, Destiny was developed by a AAA studio. Minecraft was an independent group of literally a dozen. Harmonix lies somewhere in the middle leaning to the Minecraft side. They're a Minecraft team trying to work on a Destiny-sized game. Get what I'm saying?

So cut Harmonix some slack. Would you rather them have Rock Band 4 in developer hell for 5-10 years with zero community input so it can meet your "completed" standards? Or would you rather them have released it as it was, not "finished" but playable with the opportunity to develop the game over time based on what the community wants, offering a variety of paid and free game updates?

Exactly, the fact that their free means there's nothing dodgy going on - like I said about Destiny, I hated it at first, but I eventually got used to it and I've accepted that this is the way games work now.

I'm fact I like it better. Theres a bias toward older games because they have that nostalgia factor, but I bet you when you played them at the time they could be repetitive and boring - whereas now with games like destiny (it's one of the few I play lol) it's always changing (the only prob I have is with the accounting breakage involving dlc pricing where $40 = £40, BIG no no).

I just play it a bit, then leave it for a while, then I come back and boom it's like a brand new game.

I don't know if anyone has said it yet, I've not kept up with this post even a little, but what I mainly hate about RB4 is the Overdrive sound filter thing (I don't know what it's called) and the venues aren't what they used to be. I'm sure most of you, if not all of you have noticed that. But you gotta agree that it sucks. I miss the old venue effects with like black and white filters and all of the above.

The Overdrive thing (the little "5-way toggle switch") is basically useless now. I feel like that it's pointless that they go out of their way for getting multitracks now, because all they're good for is missing notes. You can't use that switch to make the song sound cool anymore. The only time it works, obviously, is when you do Freestyle Solos.

RB4 sucks when you're playing it for feel. The only reason why I really play it is because of the new DLC and mostly because of the fact that my Xbox 360 guitar is starting to shit the bed. And even if the orange button didn't have to be pressed so hard or if I didn't have to hit Select with my pinky to use Overdrive, the old guitar is so clunky anyway and I hear that more than I hear the game.

I also didn't even mention making characters. I have so little options to choose from. My band's characters essentially look the same, they have no personality.

Minecraft was created off of a different basis. There was not a game before it that really set the bar high for the game ( Like you said); the biggest thing about RB4 is the fact that they didn't change the price of the game. Comparing what you got for $60 before and what you got for $60 now is just completely lack-luster.

Harmonix isn't the company it used to be. When RB2 and RB3 came out Harmonix had considerably more resources than they do now. After Rock Band 3 Harmonix's resources, particularly staff and budget, were considerably downsized.

Respectfully, the thing you and many Rock Ban--hell, many gamers in general don't understand is that video games aren't easy to develop and the smaller a studio and budget, the less complete a game is going to be when given the scale of the game. I know what you're thinking. "Ori and the Blind Forest felt complete." "Minecraft felt complete." Limbo felt complete." Yes, but those are small games. Rock Band isn't. Harmonix went from a AAA-level dev team to practically an indie studio.. To give an example, Destiny was developed by a AAA studio. Minecraft was an independent group of literally a dozen. Harmonix lies somewhere in the middle leaning to the Minecraft side. They're a Minecraft team trying to work on a Destiny-sized game. Get what I'm saying?

But that doesn't change the fact that what they have created before. They know what type of polish and what needs to go into their game, features, UI, etc. I understand that moving to a new Engine isn't just cut and paste but all of the back bone should be there to carry the game over from one engine to the next. The fact that they knew they were going to be missing features to add in later to the update is what upsets me. They know what their game could have been and they're just not putting the proper time into what made the game successful in the first place.

So cut Harmonix some slack. Would you rather them have Rock Band 4 in developer hell for 5-10 years with zero community input so it can meet your "completed" standards? Or would you rather them have released it as it was, not "finished" but playable with the opportunity to develop the game over time based on what the community wants, offering a variety of paid and free game updates?

Just think about it.

Yes, I would honestly have loved to have waited until this year or early next for them to release Rock Band 4 at a massive launch. They could've had all the exports fixed, not to mention the load of instrument issues and compatibility issues with older instruments.

Your "free" updates are over. They weren't even updates, I'd call them more bug fixes and feature catch-ups to sort of come close to the original games. Now you're sticking Multiplayer and this new Rivals mode into a $30 pay wall? So now I'm paying $90 for a game that still sn't as good as any previous title. Rivals mode doesn't even really add anything special. A drawn out YouTube video series after each setlist you play that I can just watch whoever uploads them, and then rivals iteself added in stat and score/note/whatever tracking to compare yourself to other people but then just stick it behind Team A and B for pointless bragging rights.

The point of it all is that this game is basically just a giant Early Alpha/Beta that was marketed as a full game and just doesn't come close to being one. I don't feel like waiting 2+ years for my $90+ to be worth it.

Yeah I can see what you mean. Paying for an expansion to include features we had with a core game is irritating. There's a game that did that recently other than RB4 but I can't think of at the moment.

I still think you're being a little unfair to the team considering how much smaller they are now and how little resources they have working to build a game this size but I do understand and agree with your frustrations regarding how it's been developed.

Minecraft was created off of a different basis. There was not a game before it that really set the bar high for the game

This is like saying that if the Lakers make the playoff this year they are utter and total crap because 8 years ago they won back to back titles. They don't have the same players, they don't have the same coaching staff, but you expect them to be the same teams they were 8 years ago? You would be a very deluded Lakers fan. Hey, nobody is forcing you to buy tickets but comparing the results of this team with those of that team is nonsense.

This is like saying that if the Lakers make the playoff this year they are utter and total crap because 8 years ago they won back to back titles. They don't have the same players, they don't have the same coaching staff, but you expect them to be the same teams they were 8 years ago? You would be a very deluded Lakers fan. Hey, nobody is forcing you to buy tickets but comparing the results of this team with those of that team is nonsense.

Well ... this might be a good analogy IF the Lakers could just go back and get the same players and coaching staff they had 8 years ago, like we can with RB3

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Well ... this might be a good analogy IF the Lakers could just go back and get the same players and coaching staff they had 8 years ago, like we can with RB3

Oh but you can, you can still watch Lakers games from 8 years ago by downloading them or if you recorded them. The objection I responded to is not "I like RB3 better, RB4 does not do it for me, I'm sticking with RB3". The objection is that RB4 has less features than RB3. No kidding, RB4 has been developed by a small studio... Let's say that Nintendo abandons Mario Kart because it's not successful anymore. Now, let's say that a small portion of the team responsible for Mario Kart 8 decides to leave Nintendo, open a small studio and buys the licence to Mario Kart from Nintendo. Just the licence, mind you, nothing else, no assets. Now, if this new team were to develop a Mario Kart 9 from scratch with their own resources and the funds they could get their hands on, do you think it would have:

a ) More features than Mario Kart 8 because 9 is more than 8 so, duh, MORE!

b ) lolwut, way less features, they have a fraction of the money and the manpower they had for Mario Kart 8, how can anybody think it would have more features? It's a miracle if it's not a game in Flash.

Again, I don't care at all about buying it or not buying it. Anybody is entitled to not buy the game even if it has way more features. If anybody doesn't like RB4, why should they buy it? But one thing is not buying it because it has less features, another is not understanding that this game was developed with small studio money.

Oh but you can, you can still watch Lakers games from 8 years ago by downloading them or if you recorded them. The objection I responded to is not "I like RB3 better, RB4 does not do it for me, I'm sticking with RB3". The objection is that RB4 has less features than RB3. No kidding, RB4 has been developed by a small studio... Let's say that Nintendo abandons Mario Kart because it's not successful anymore. Now, let's say that a small portion of the team responsible for Mario Kart 8 decides to leave Nintendo, open a small studio and buys the licence to Mario Kart from Nintendo. Just the licence, mind you, nothing else, no assets. Now, if this new team were to develop a Mario Kart 9 from scratch with their own resources and the funds they could get their hands on, do you think it would have:

a ) More features than Mario Kart 8 because 9 is more than 8 so, duh, MORE!

b ) lolwut, way less features, they have a fraction of the money and the manpower they had for Mario Kart 8, how can anybody think it would have more features? It's a miracle if it's not a game in Flash.

Again, I don't care at all about buying it or not buying it. Anybody is entitled to not buy the game even if it has way more features. If anybody doesn't like RB4, why should they buy it? But one thing is not buying it because it has less features, another is not understanding that this game was developed with small studio money.

This right here. Another recent example of this in the gaming world is Bloodborne when compared to Dark Souls 3. You look at Bloodborne and you get a beautiful game with brilliant music, graphical fidelity and animation work, whereas Dark Souls 3 looks completely drab by comparison and was a considerable disappointment for many after playing through Bloodborne. The reason for this being that Bloodborne was a PS4 exclusive funded by Sony, one of the largest multimedia corporations on the planet. Dark Souls 3 at best got funding from Bandai Namco and the rest would've came from From Software themselves.

That still disappoints me that the kickstarter failed. All they had to do was announce that simultaneous online play was coming back while that kickstarter was active and it may have had a chance to make its goal. You have no idea how much I want the RBN to come back. Its so lame that the RBN can't exist on current generation consoles. Until customs are a thing for RB4 I will always gravitate to RB3. We can still dream of having 20,000 songs in our libraries? RB4 for the PC is that avenue at this point. I have still purchased all DLC for RB4 on XboxOne but have barely touched it. I just want to support Harmonix to keep the franchise alive even though I'm not happy with RB4 as it stands.

I still play both games daily on both my PS3(RB3) and PS4(RB4). Rivals could be the kick in the taint this game needs. With the new controller developer, it would be a smart move to bring back online play. Plus, HMX really should honor EVERY SINGLE SONG PURCHASED INCLUDING RBN in this game. This was supposed to be a DAY ONE thing. I haven't seen a bigger fail then THPS5.Lol.

I cannot stand the way the note highway is this time around. In RB3 it was bigger, and wasn't overly shiny. With RB4 sometimes I have a hard time distinguishing how many hits are in a drum roll. It's just a step backwards. Why do I want a smaller highway to look at? Everything else, like the lame menu theme, has mostly been changed too, but there still are a few steps backwards. I really liked the Y or Triangle function on the song select from RB3 to see the album, artist, and song length.